Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
